News Commentary: Penmanship is Dead
On Sundays I offer comments on some of the most interesting information technology stories that I have found on the web that week. Please feel free to join in the discussion or suggest stories during the week.
Today’s news story is sort of an anti-technology one! I had not thought about this topic is a very long time until I woke to find the Associated Press running a story about it that got picked up by nearly every major syndicate overnight.
Here is the story. It is all about the value of penmanship in the Information Age.
Associated Press: Cursive writing may be fading skill, but so what?
Davis’ experience gets repeated every time parents, who recall their own hours of laborious cursive practice, learn that what used to be called "penmanship" is being shunted aside at schools across the country in favor of 21st century skills.
The decline of cursive is happening as students are doing more and more work on computers, including writing…
"We need to make sure they’ll be ready for what’s going to happen in 2020 or 2030," said Katie Van Sluys, a professor at DePaul University …
Handwriting is increasingly something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others, she said. Students accustomed to using computers to write at home have a hard time seeing the relevance of hours of practicing cursive handwriting.
Before I go any further, I need to confess something. I absolutely love quality pens and fine paper. I keep a hand written journal. I primarily use a paper planner to track my calendar and to-dos. Having said that, in line with the story’s thrust, it is all for me. No one ever sees them, they are but communications with myself. The only handwritten note that I have passed to anyone else in months have been inside greeting cards!
This all makes me think that I really do agree with the point that beautiful handwriting for aesthetics case only seems worthless in the Information Age. As a father of elementary school children, I would rather have them spending time on keyboarding skills (the new name for touch typing) than cursive penmanship. I look around the office at work and realize that almost to a one, the better I see people typing, the higher they have risen in the organization. I suspect that keyboarding might just be one of the five most important skills for corporate success today… along with critical thinking, communication, analytical evaluation, and empathy. Though, I have never really put thought into this topic, it all falls into line. Penmanship is dead.
My IT Thought of the Days is to agree that penmanship is an antiquated skill in the Information Age. So what do you think? When was your last handwritten communication? Please share your thoughts with the group.
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for September 20, 2009 by Scott Coughlin
Image Credit:TruckTrend.com
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I also think that penmanship is a dying skill and one that represents more formal communications. For instance, I only send handwritten notes for special occasions: notes accompanying packages, important thank you notes, birthday greetings, and Christmas cards. Electronic communications easily and more quickly fills the requirement for regular social niceties.
Even more importantly, computers have become a critical component in my ability to work. I have a hard time writing about anything without a keyboard. If I have write draft on paper, it is extremely difficult. Part of the challenge is purely mechanical…it’s much harder to move things around when you’ve written it down. Drafting on a computer gives you the flexibility to brainstorm while you’re writing and minimizes the amount of rework required to take that material and put it in final form.